ACE begins Baldwin Ave. grade separation project

Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority (ACE) started construction on a roadway underpass and double-track railroad bridge to replace a congested railroad crossing on Baldwin Avenue in the City of El Monte, Calif.

The railroad crossing is located north of Valley Boulevard and south of Lower Azusa Road on Baldwin Avenue, a main north-south thoroughfare connecting Interstates 10 and 210. Baldwin Avenue is used daily by 28,000 vehicles, including significant truck traffic, and a blocked by an average of 20 Union Pacific freight trains a day. Two collisions have been logged at the crossing during the past 10 years.

"Today's groundbreaking marks the start of a project that will eliminate train delays, deadly crossing collisions and locomotive horn blasts, help improve our region's air quality and create 1,370 jobs during two years of construction," said city of San Gabriel Councilman David Gutierrez, chairman of ACE. "We thank our federal, state, local and railroad partners for providing the funding support needed to get this project under construction."

The $75.9-million project is scheduled to be completed in 2015. The project is an investment in a program of grade separations along the Alameda Corridor-East Trade Corridor, which accommodates about 60 percent of the containers moved from the nation's busiest container ports in the San Pedro Bay to the rest of the country via the region's rail network.